The Colin McCahon Trust Research Committee
Lizzie Bisley
Lizzie Bisley is Te Papa’s curator of modern art. She studied at Victoria University of Wellington and at the Royal College of Art, London, before working as a curator at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. She has curated a number of exhibitions relating to histories of modernism – both internationally and in New Zealand. Her research is focused on the close relationships between art, design and architecture in the twentieth century.
Julia Waite
Julia Waite is Curator, New Zealand Art | Kairauhī, Toi nō Aotearoa at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Her research interests are focused on the development of modern art in New Zealand and global modernisms. In 2015 Waite curated the touring exhibition Freedom and Structure: Cubism and New Zealand Art 1930– 1960, which revealed the impacts of Cubism on three artists and repositioned Colin McCahon in a wider network. Past projects she has co-curated include Gordon Walters: New Vision (2018) and Louise Henderson: From Life (2019). In 2021 she curated the survey Bill Culbert| Slow Wonder. Most recently, Waite has curated Modern Women: Flight of Time, which opened at Auckland Art Gallery in August 2024 and has an associated publication. Waite is currently working on a PhD, researching the work of post-war weavers and investigating the relationship between weaving and abstraction.
Robyn Notman
Since 2017 Robyn Notman has been Head Curator, Art and Photography at Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. Between 2006-2016 she was the Exhibitions and Collection Manager at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. In 2003 she was an Exhibition Attendant for Michael Stevenson’s This the Trekka project at the New Zealand pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia (supported by CNZ). In 2006 she attended the Attingham Summer School and undertook internships at the Royal Collections, V&A, National Trust and English Heritage as the Erroll Clark/ CNZ scholar; in 2014 she travelled to Edinburgh as a CNZ/British Council Momentum scholar. Curated exhibitions (some with publications) include Beloved: Works from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2009 with Aaron Kreisler); Still-Life, The Art of Anatomy (DPAG 2010, with Paul Trotman): Freefall (Hocken 2017); A Garden of Earthly Delights (Hocken 2019, with Heather Straka); Joe L’Estrange: Painter (Hocken 2022) and Artists and Letters, Pictures and Words (Hocken 2024, with Peter Simpson). Upcoming curatorial projects include an Adrienne Martyn survey exhibition and publication in 2026. Her highest degree is an MLitt (with distinction) from the University of Otago. She was one of the first graduates of Massey’s PGDip in Museum Studies programme. Research interests include the role of philanthropy in the development of public art collections and arts fellowships, notably the significant contributions made by Mary Dora and Esmond de Beer and their cousin Charles Brasch, to the arts in Ōtepoti Dunedin.
Sarah Hillary
Sarah Hillary was the Principal Conservator at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (AAG) until August 2024 and worked there for 40 years. She began researching the painting techniques of Colin McCahon in 1997 with the support of funding from the Lottery Grants Board, Te Poari Rota. In 2000 Sarah was co-curator with Kendrah Morgan of the AAG exhibition Beneath the Surface: McCahon’s materials and techniques 1954-66 and was the travelling conservator for the international exhibition Colin McCahon: A Question of Faith from 2002-2004. In 2006 she published A Painters Paradise: the materials and techniques of Colin McCahon in the Journal of New Zealand Art History. The following year Sarah worked with scientists and conservators from the Getty Conservation Institute to identify cracking in works by McCahon between 1959-1961. Traction reaction: severe deterioration of household and paving paints used by Colin McCahon was published in the AICCM journal in 2007. Sarah has treated many works by McCahon during her time at the Gallery and in 2019 was involved in the project to restore Colin McCahon’s Chapel Windows for the McCahon centenary.
Dr Peter Simpson
Born in Takaka, Peter Simpson has a PhD from the University of Toronto and taught for forty years in universities in Canada and New Zealand. He has written and edited many books about New Zealand literature, art and cultural history, including Bloomsbury South: The Arts in Christchurch 1933-53 (2016), for which he received the Michael King Fellowship from Creative New Zealand, and titles on Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Allen Curnow, Kendrick Smithyman, Charles Brasch, Leo Bensemann and Peter Peryer.
Since the mid-1990s he has curated five exhibitions and published several books about Colin McCahon, including a two-volume monograph published by Auckland University Press in 2019 and 2020. His most recent book is Dear Colin, Dear Ron: The Selected Letters of Colin McCahon and Ron O’Reilly (Te Papa Press, 2024). He has been a member of the McCahon House Trust and a member of the Michael King Trust. He is currently a member of the Research Committee for the Colin McCahon Trust.
He received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Non-fiction in 2017 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Canterbury in 2020. He lives in Auckland.